The present invention relates to a recording medium for recording one or plurality of main data, management data for controlling the main data, one or plurality of sub data related to the main data and sub management data for controlling the sub data, a recording apparatus and a recording method for recording the data into the recording medium and an editing apparatus and an editing method for carrying out editing of the sub data recorded on the recording medium.
In recent years, there have been developed audio or video apparatuses and information apparatuses for recording and playing back various kinds of data such as still-picture data, moving-picture data, musical data and audio data into and from a small-size recording medium with a solid-state recording device such as a flash memory mounted thereon by using a dedicated drive unit or a general-purpose drive unit.
With such a recording medium, recording and playback operations can be carried out for each of the apparatuses. In addition, it is expected that various kinds of data processing can be implemented in a system including an information apparatus such as a personal computer or another apparatus such as a CD player, an MD player and video visual equipment such as a video apparatus.
There is a demand for processing to edit a file stored in a storage system using such a solid-state storage device.
In addition, not only is an edit capability demanded, but there is also a demand for more efficient edit processing. In an efficient edit processing, for example, there is a demand for a minimum number of operations such as transfers, copying and rewriting of data required in file editing in a recording medium as well as a minimum edit processing time and minimum power consumption.
In particular, it is possible to conceive recording additional data into such a recording medium by associating the additional data with audio and video data. The additional data itself has a relatively large size. For this reason, there is also raised a demand for a high processing power of the processing apparatus to process additional data such as rewriting the entire additional data when it is desired to carry out editing work such as deletion of one piece of additional data.
In addition, even if such processing can be well carried out by for example an ordinary general-purpose personal computer, the processing may be too large a load for a portable recording/playback apparatus in some cases. With such a condition taken into consideration, it is desired to provide a management system which allows editing work to be carried out as a small processing load with a high degree of efficiency.
It is an object of the present invention addressing the problem described above to provide a management system for carrying out work to control and edit additional information as simple processing.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording medium for recording one or plurality of main data and one or plurality of sub data related to the main data, the recording medium comprising: a main data recording region for recording the one or plurality of main data; a sub data recording region for recording at least one of sub data file comprising the one or plurality of sub data and sub management data for controlling recording locations of the sub data; and a management data recording region for recording link information for controlling the main data recorded in the main data recording region and linking the main data to the sub data file containing the sub data related to the main data.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of recording data into a recording medium for recording one or plurality of main data, management data for controlling the main data and one or plurality of sub data related to the main data, the method comprising the steps of: recording the main data into the recording medium; recording the management data based on recording of the main data; recording a sub data file comprising the one or plurality of sub data into the recording medium; and updating the management data so as to record link information for linking the main data to the sub data file as one of the management data.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an editing method for carrying out editing work by deletion of an invalid one of sub data recorded on a recording medium used for recording one or plurality of main data, management data for controlling the main data and a sub data file comprising at least one of the sub data related to the main data and sub management data for controlling the sub data wherein the sub data file is connected and linked to the management data, the editing method comprising: a data reading step of reading out the management data from the recording medium; a file reading step of reading out the sub data file from the recording medium in accordance with link information of the management data; a deletion step of deleting management data associated with sub data invalidated by sub management data in the sub data file and deleting the sub data determined to be invalid from the sub data file in case the sub data is determined to be invalid on the basis of the sub management data in the sub data file; and a file writing step of writing back the sub data file with unnecessary information deleted at the deletion step into the recording medium.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an editing method for carrying out editing work by deletion of sub data recorded on a recording medium used for recording one or plurality of main data, management data for controlling the main data and a sub data file comprising at least one of the sub data related to the main data and sub management data for controlling the sub data wherein the sub data file is connected and linked to the management data, the editing method comprising: a data reading step of reading out the management data from the recording medium; a file reading step of reading out the sub data file from the recording medium in accordance with link information of the management data; a rewriting step of rewriting a specific one or plurality of sub management data associated with sub data specified to be deleted in the sub data file read out at the file reading step; and a file writing step of writing back the sub data file with the specific one or plurality of sub management data for the unnecessary sub data rewritten at the rewriting step into the recording medium.
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording apparatus for recording one or plurality of main data, management data for controlling the main data and a sub data file comprising at least one of sub data related to the main data and sub management data for controlling the sub data into a recording medium, the recording apparatus comprising: recording means for recording the main data, the management data or the sub data file into the recording medium; first updating means for updating the management data stored on the recording medium on the basis of recording of the main data into the recording medium; sub data file generation means for generating sub management data for controlling at least one of sub data and creating a sub data file comprising at least the one of sub data and the sub management data; and second updating means for updating the management data so as to record link information associating the sub data file with the main data as one of the management data.
According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an editing apparatus for carrying out editing work by deletion of an invalid one of sub data recorded on a recording medium used for recording one or plurality of main data, management data for controlling the main data and a sub data file comprising at least one of the sub data related to the main data and sub management data for controlling the sub data wherein the sub data file is connected and linked to the management data, the editing apparatus comprising: reading means for reading out the information from the recording medium; writing means for writing the data into the recording medium; judgment means for forming a judgment as to whether or not there is an invalid one of sub data on the basis of the sub management data in the sub data file read out from the recording medium by the recording means; and control means for controlling work to edit the sub data file in case a result of the judgment formed by the judgment means indicates that there is an invalid one of sub data by execution of the steps of: deleting management data associated with sub data invalidated by the sub management data in the sub data file; deleting the sub data determined to be invalid from the sub data file; and controlling the write means to write the edited sub data file into the recording medium.
According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided an editing apparatus for carrying out editing work by deletion of sub data recorded on a recording medium used for recording one or plurality of main data, management data for controlling the main data and a sub data file comprising at least one of the sub data related to the main data and sub management data for controlling the sub data wherein the sub data file is connected and linked to the management data, the editing apparatus comprising: access means for reading out and writing the data from and into the recording medium; and control means for controlling the access means to execute the steps of: rewriting a specific one or plurality of sub management data associated with sub data specified to be deleted in the sub data file read out by the access means; and writing back the sub data file with the specific one or plurality of sub management data rewritten into the recording medium.